May 9, 2004
By Jack Price

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

There seems to be a lot involved these days with being a Christian – a follower of Jesus.  You have to decide how to interpret the Bible – literally or metaphorically.  You have to decide which church to join – Protestant, Catholic, Unity, Crossroads?  You have to figure out “Should I be for Bush or against Bush?”  So many things!

Yet, the author of the gospel of John makes it pretty simple for us.  On the lips of Jesus in the upper room, he says to the disciples, “All you need is love.”  But what was he talking about?  First of all, he was talking about a new commandment.  In our postmodern age, we tend to minimize the impact of “commandment,” preferring something like:  The 10 Really Compelling Ideas; or The 10 Suggestions, but not The 10 Commandments.  A new commandment I give you. 

The new commandment to love was for the disciples.  Just like the Ten Commandments were for Israel and are now widely adopted, so this new commandment is for all who call themselves followers of Jesus. “Just as I have loved you, you should love one another”.  This is a tall order from the one who measured love this way, “that a person lay down his life for his friends”. 

In the upper room, Jesus is preparing to lay down his life for his friend.  Their love for each other cannot afford to be less than his was for them.  They must love each other or they will not survive.  The gospel of John was written to a church, at the end of the 1^st century, that was suffering division and persecution.  The word to them was “we must love each other or we will not survive”.

I’ve called this sermon “Ground Zero”.  It’s a phrase that means “point of impact”.  In the days of the cold war, the image was that of points targeted for nuclear strikes.  In the church today, including this congregation, with all that can divide us, there is only one fundamental to unite us.  Our “ground zero,” the point of impact for all of life is this:  That we love one another as God through Christ loves us.

Christian love, by the time of the writing of this gospel, was one of the most compelling arguments and witnesses for the Christian faith.  They were known to others by their powerful love for one another.  We believe that the power of love is greater than the powers of darkness, even though it does not always seem that way.  Mother’s Day seems to be an ideal time to talk about love as the most powerful force in the world.  The power of love is not passive.  It is nonviolent, but it is active and assertive.

According to C. S.  Lewis comes in two primary categories of love.  There is “Need-love,” the very human form of love based on our own needs.  In our need love, we least resemble God’s divine love.  We are least like God yet, the funny thing is we are closest in approach to God because recognizing our need for God’s love is the appropriate posture in which to come before the Spirit of Life itself.

            The second category of love is “Gift love,” the human love that most closely resembles divine love.  When you practice gift love, you desire to give and you want to meet the needs of the one you love.  When we love with “gift love,” we are most like God   There is, however, a problem.  The temptation, when we rise to the level of gift-love, is pride – pride in being selfless, pride in loving like God, and even pride in being humble.  We are not God.  To approach God requires we realize our total need for God’s grace.

            The “love” Jesus commands his disciples to practice is represented by the Greek word agapé, sometimes translated “charity”.  Agapé is the human love that most closely reflects God’s love.  It is “gift-Love” that recognizes the other’s need.  It is the quality of human love described in 1 Corinthians 13:  “Love is patient; love is kind; not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.”

Charity is the love that brings all other forms of human love to the fullness of their potential.  Agapé is God’s love working to enhance human love, enabling us to love even the unlovable with the gift-love of God.  The defining characteristic of a “Jesus Person” is love.  God is love.  Jesus is love.  The essential quality of a Christ follower is love.  Jesus loves us.  We love one another.  God has created us to love, but love is not an easy path.  It is the narrow pathway, filled with roadblocks, but it is the way that leads to life.  Arab philosopher Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet) warns us:

If, in your fear, you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, into the season-less world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

            Our ability to have “faith” is determined by our capacity to love.  Our ability to grow in the depth and height of faith, to touch the extreme boundaries of our capacity to believe and trust, and then to stretch a little more is based on our ability to trust we are loved.  When we know that we are loved, we can love each other no matter what.

Our capacity to grow as a church, first in faith and then in numbers, is directly related to our ability to trust that we are loved by God, that we have the capacity to love and receive love from one another.  Therefore that we are able to walk through “the experiences of the defeat of our assumption and dreams” and still love.  (Sharon Parks, Harvard Div. School)

There is still a larger significance in the reality of love as the ultimate truth.  The New Testament suggests it and the book of Revelation affirms that the ultimate victory of love is assured.  Love overcomes evil by the power of loyalty and commitment to the God of love.  The power of love lies in following the example of Jesus, by trusting in the power of God’s love, though it may mean loss, shame, or even death for us personally. 

God places a tremendous responsibility for this struggle into our hands -- to pray and to live into being God’s new creation.  Certainly, only God has the power to transform evil into good, to redeem brokenness, and to forgive sin at its depth.  God’s power assures the ultimate victory of love over hate and good over evil.  God has made us partners in the process, co-creators of the new creation. 

God’s is the work of transforming evil, yet God has made us partners in praying a world of love into being.   God makes us co-creators of the new creation.  The power of God’s love is such that even one person, living faithfully, brings the “kingdom” closer to realization.  This is our calling:  to live in the reality of heaven now, on earth. 

The struggle with evil still goes on, obviously.  Just look at the world.  Just look at our own society.  God’s ability to bring healing, peace and justice into our lives and into our world is dependent on our willingness and our passion to open spaces for the Spirit to work.  God has so made the world such that our willingness to walk the path of cross, to oppose the powers of darkness in our world, and to accept the worst they can do in order to expose their evil sets God’s transforming love free in our world. 

Love is the lesson of Mother’s day.  A mother’s love at its very best expresses giving and nurturing.  It is fearless, challenging, life-giving, and faithful.  It is a human love that can resemble the love of God.  For this reason, I invite you who are followers of Jesus to commit yourselves to be more loving in your relationships and actions.  You who are members of the congregation of Crossroads Church, I challenge you to join me in continuing to create a community of Christ-like love here, in this place.  And I invite each of you looking for a community of love to consider committing yourselves to membership in this community.

The most important word I can ever say to you, no matter who you are, no matter what you have faced, or face, in your life, no matter how challenging it has been, and no matter how good or bad it is now, you can be a loving person.  Jesus insists.  “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.”  Rather than see how others don’t seem to love you enough or the way you think they should, you love them.  You love yourself.  You love the community of faith through which you are connected to the body of Christ.  Embody the love of Christ in your life and you will be able to live.

Mother Teresa has said, “Just allow people to see Jesus in you to see how you pray, to see how you lead a pure life, to see how you deal with your family, to see how much peace there is in  your family [life], then you can look straight into their eyes and say, ‘This is the way.’  You speak from life.  You speak from experience.”  The sisters of Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, have a prayer.  Let it become ours.

“Dear Jesus, Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.

Shine through us and be so in us that every soul we come in contact with

May feel your presence in our soul.

Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus.

Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine.

Let us thus praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around us.

Let us preach you without preaching, not by words, but by our example

By the catching force, The sympathetic influence of what we do,

The evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.  Amen”